OTTAWA — The destruction and force of Hurricane Sandy has “focused minds” in the Conservative cabinet on the need to deal with global warming, says Canada’s environment minister.

Peter Kent said that watching the storm’s damage along the eastern coast of the United States, it’s clear there will be more cases of extreme weather due to climate change and the country needs to plan appropriately.

That means dealing with infrastructure in the North, helping communities built on increasingly unstable permafrost, and early warning systems so communities can be told of extreme weather heading their way.

“The scientists tell us on a regular basis you can’t connect individual incidents of extreme weather with climate change, but I think it’s quite clear that we are seeing increased incidents of extreme weather,” Kent said after testifying before the Commons environment committee. “Droughts, floods, the diminishing ice cap, ozone opening and closing over the poles — you don’t have to convince me that climate change is a very real and present danger and I think that we need to address it. We need to address it by bringing the rest of the world on board to do something about it.”

But Kent was very clear when asked about a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system: Canada won’t go that route, even if our largest trading partner, the United States, legislates a price on carbon. Kent said that in talks with his American counterparts, he hasn’t been given any indication that the Obama administration would be looking to implement a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system to address climate change.

Last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters travelling on the president’s plane that President Barack Obama would “never propose a carbon tax” and had no intention of introducing one. The Conservatives pointed to this during question period in the Commons Monday afternoon, and Kent referenced it when reporters asked him about climate change talks with the United States.

Kent said the government continues to believe that regulations domestically and negotiations internationally are the avenues through which to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lessen the impact of global warming.

“You know the status of the European carbon market — it’s one of the most volatile in the world. It’s depressed now. Originally priced around $20 a tonne, it’s down to between $2 and $3 a ton, there are some who see the complete collapse of that market,” Kent said. “We believe that regulation is the way to achieve our obligations.”

The government has said that it is halfway to its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals, although critics have argued that the government changed its methodology for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, which skews the results. The government sticks by its assessment and by its decision to pull out of the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

That decision to pull out of Kyoto was announced almost one year ago. At the time, Kent said pulling out would have cost Canada $14 billion in penalties for not meeting certain requirements under Kyoto.

But six months after he was first asked for a sector-by-sector breakdown , Kent was unable to tell the Commons’ environment committee how the government came to its conclusion. Rather, Kent repeatedly said that the specific dollar figures themselves weren’t important; what was more important was the overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.